extraordinary%20encounters

262 Walton’s abduction
UFO abductee Travis Walton (Dennis Stacy/Fortean
Picture Library)
The incident began as the seven-member
crew of young men, ranging in age from seventeen
to twenty-eight, were quitting work at
6 A.M. on November 5. As they left the site,
located in the Apache-Sitgreaves National
Forest, they noticed, ahead of them, a brilliant
glow, its source hidden by the trees. As their
pickup continued down the road, they observed
a disc-shaped structure, approximately
one-hundred feet in diameter, twenty feet
wide, and eight feet high. It was hovering
twenty feet above a clearing. As the pickup
slowed down, Walton jumped out and ran toward
the object. According to Walton’s own
testimony as well as what other crew members
subsequently told law-enforcement authorities
and civilian ufologists, Walton got within
six feet of the bottom of the craft. Sounds
began to come from the UFO, unnerving
Walton, who was starting to back away when
a bluish green beam hit him, shooting him
back some ten feet.
Te r r i fied, the others fled in the truck. A few
minutes later, their panic somewhat subsided,
they returned to re t r i e ve their cow o rk e r, only to
find no trace of him. After twenty minutes of
f ruitless searching, they drove to nearby He b e r,
A r i zona, and re p o rted the disappearance to the
authorities. The crew returned to the site in the
company of two sheriff’s officers. They found
no clues to tip them off to Wa l t o n’s whereabouts.
At midnight, Wa l t o n’s mother and
other family members we re notified. The next
day searches resumed. By now the authorities
suspected that either the crew had murd e re d
Walton and concocted a wild UFO tale to
c over up the deed or Walton and his bro t h e r
Duane had engineered a hoax for monetary
reasons. No actual evidence supported either of
these suppositions, but the alternative—that a
UFO had kidnapped Travis Walton—was too
outlandish to be taken seriously.
As publicity spread, reporters, ufologists,
and curiosity-seekers descended on the scene,
and charges and countercharges flew. The authorities
insisted that the witnesses undergo
polygraph examination. According to examiner
Cy Gilson, the results in five cases were
positive—indicating that the men had given a
sincere account—and in one instance inconclusive.
Sheriff Marlin Gillespie declared that
he was now convinced that the UFO story
was true, after all.
Near midnight on November 10, Walton’s
brother-in-law Grant Neff took a call, which
he first took to be a prank, from a weakvoiced,
confused-sounding man who claimed
to be Travis Walton. The caller said he was
phoning from a gas station in Heber, thirty
miles east of Taylor, where Neff and his wife
lived. When Neff seemed ready to hang up,
the voice became desperate, and Neff realized
that he was indeed speaking with Travis. Neff
and Duane Walton drove to Heber and found
Travis at a phone both near the station, shivering
in the same clothes he had been wearing
five days earlier. It was only eighteen degrees
outside.
A complex series of events followed, with
hoax charges being leveled by some (though